Taiwan has been having its problems getting its weapons purchases from other nations made because everyone is afraid of angering the Communist Chinese - and because of the severity of the debt owed to them by the US we're unfortunately no exception.

Hence - Taiwan is seeing themselves increasingly on their own w/r/t weapons purchases (and development), and therefore the strategy is to develop weapons locally that will cause sufficient damage to the Chinese to make it far too costly for them to attempt an invasion. If the new missiles are also stealthy (along with their frigates), the Chinese could be in for a very rude awakening should they make good on their threats.